Day 1 play at the Festa al Lago is off and running.  A current field of around 150 players are  at their seats to start the event and players seem inclined to continue to trickle in with no hurry.  The buy in for the event is $15,000 and the starting chip stack is 60,000.  With the blinds starting at 50 / 100 nobody seems in any huge rush to get to the tables and fight over the small pots right off the bat.

Five levels of play are scheduled for the day and it was announced that registration will not only stay open all day today, but players will be allowed to register as late as the end of the 8th level of play meaning the registration cutoff won’t hit until around 5pm during the second day of play.  This new policy has drawn a lot of attention from the players, with few seeming to think it is a very good idea.  Whether it is just a theoretical debate or will be more immediately important won’t be known until the close of registration tomorrow when everyone can judge how many people took advantage of the late start and for what potential reasons.

For now, the cards are in the air and the Fontana Lounge at the Bellagio seems relatively full, though there are a few satellites still running that add a few tables to the already small Fontana Lounge.  In the past day 1 play at the Bellagio was usually split over two days and still ended up using the main poker room as overflow, but with the lower numbers of late both a starting day has been cut and there is no need for the use of any tables in the main poker room.

So far Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little, Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar, Scott “BigRiskky” Clements, Jordan “scarface_79″ Smith, Joe Sebok, Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu have already been spotted in the field.

• October 23, 2009 -- Closing In: 56 Left
• October 23, 2009 -- Festa al Lago 2009 Day 3 Gallery
• October 22, 2009 -- Five and Done
• October 23, 2009 -- Festa al Lago: End of Day 3